


A Wolf of Winter

by KingDR



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dark Jon Snow, Eventual Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen, F/M, Gen, Jon Snow Knows Something, Jon Snow is King in the North, Jon Snow is a Stark, King Jon Snow, Magic, Political Jon Snow, R Plus L Equals J, Time Travel, Warg Jon Snow, Wargs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:26:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24695986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingDR/pseuds/KingDR
Summary: In the South, Daenerys Targaryen wakes up after a vision that ends with a dagger in her heart. She knows what is coming, and this time she will win the Game of Thrones. R'hllor will have his way.Maybe not. There are other, older Gods in this world.In the North, Jon Snow comes back to life to find that he is in a world quite similar to, but different from his own. He isn't happy about things.(Book!Jon ends up in the show universe while Daenerys thinks she's got the measure of the world after travels back in time. Jon-centric)
Relationships: Arya Stark/Gendry Waters, Gilly/Samwell Tarly, Grey Worm/Missandei, Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen
Comments: 48
Kudos: 143





	A Wolf of Winter

_For the watch._

The words rung in his ear, sometimes soft, sometimes hurting him with the force of them. For the watch, for the watch, for the watch. 

He was meant to lead the watch. 

Distantly, he tasted blood in his mouth. Ghost. He was with Ghost, inside him. 

Traitor. He remembered the post, remembered the words painted on to it. 

They called him a traitor, an oathbreaker. And they killed him for it. 

Jon Snow died for the watch. 

The cold crept up on him, threatened to take him. Ghost was running, his feet light over the snow, running from the Wall, into the Haunted Forest, towards the wights. 

_No_ , he tried to say. Turn back. _I must try and return to myself._

But that was impossible, wasn't it? He remembered Varamyr, he knew the stories of men in their second life. 

_Will I go mad? Am I already?_

The world slipped in and out of focus. The cold burned him until it felt like he was in a desert of sand, not of snow, the fiery grains burning into his fur. He saw a tower, heard the scream of a woman. He ran past corpses dying on the sand, blue winter roses falling out of their wounds. 

Promise me, Ned. Over his head, three dragons screamed. A man with a raven on his face bled into the roots of a laughing tree. 

_Jon_ , he heard, a voice from his childhood, the voice of the sweetest of his brothers. _You must hold on. You must not let go._

_Let me go_ , screamed the false woman, another known face. And then she screamed,, and screamed, and screamed as hounds tear at her. A squid watched from the corner, hiding in the shadows. 

_You must save them, Jon. You must go back. You are the Prince -_

The Prince crowned the wrong head. All the smiles died. The Prince died, his rubies scattering into the river, carried away by the rush. 

The flayed man stabbed the man with the wolf head on his shoulder. 

_No, you're going the wrong way, you must go forward, you're getting lost -_

He felt the storm coming before it hit, white and angry, but he kept running. A stag gored a direwolf and lions circled. 

_Crow, Crow!_ The Raven crowed. 

He felt eyes on him, a thousand eyes and one. A sword shone in the darkness. Pale blue eyes glowed like fathomless stars. 

They gathered around him, quiet as a graveyard. Pale and beautiful, they countenanced him and found him judging. 

He ran into the storm until everything around him turned white until he could not tell the sky from the snow under his feet. The raven screamed again. 

_Come back, Jon! Come back, we need you to come back -_

The strange creatures gathered around the man. He screamed as they pressed dragonglass into his chest, before he fell still. Ominously, dangerously still. 

When he looked up, his eyes were blue. 

The wolf reared, shying away. He turned and ran, trying to escape, trying to find safety. 

Run, they thought, the shifting of their body and their mind like one. Ghost had never needed words and neither had he. 

_The dead have come._ Ned, Robb, Ygritte, Bran, Rickon the babe. Benjen. All dead, but he still ran. 

Cold hands brushed at him, try to get at him, try to pull him back. He snarled and flailed, but they are closing in, catching up. 

_He must live,_ she told her brother _. He must live, because he is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire._

Promise me, Ned. 

_JON!_

Ghost burst through the door of the Lord Commander's quarter, snow falling off his fur. The people inside screamed in shock. 

The cold reached out, desperate and howling -

The thing in the body of Jon Snow woke up with a gasp, certain that everything in the world was very, very wrong. 

_____

'Jon, you need to calm down, you need to -'

He snarled, lashing out with his claws - no, his hands, biting and ripping, eager to tear out the throats of those who would do him harm -

'Lord Snow -' 

His mind raced, too many sounds and sights and phantom touches ripping his mind apart. He was not safe - he needed to get away, he needed to run, to escape -

'Watch the wolf, how in the fuck did it get so big?'

'Ghost!'

He recognized that name. He looked up, into deep red eyes, crimson like the sap of the weirwood tree, set in a face that he know like his own. A face that should be his own. His heart stilled, his breath steadied. 

The direwolf padded forward, as big as a man from foot to shoulder, but he made no noise on the stone. A wet nose nuzzled his cheek and he collapsed into the soft warmth of his oldest friend, unsure where the wolf ended and he began. 

_The direwolf is the sigil of your house, Lord Stark._

Stark. That word was familiar. But he was not a Stark, he had never been a Stark. He was the runt of the litter, the lone wolf, the one who has always stood out. 

He was Jon Snow, the bastard of Winterfell. 

'Jon,' he repeated out loud, tasting the words on his tongue. 'I am Jon Snow.'

It came back to him then, slowly, like the trickle of melting snow down the Wall. His life, his deeds. His failures. He remembered Ygritte. The wildlings he had let through the wall. The letter. How he had been betrayed...

He looked around at the room he was in, the dark bricks. The fire roaring in the hearth. This was where he had lived. Castle Black. The Lord Commander's Tower. 

He looked at the people around him, the terror on their faces, the apprehension. The calculating look on the face of the Red Woman. 

'What happened?' He asked, his voice rasping. 'What did you do?'

_I w_ _as stabbed though the heart, through the guts. I died. Yet here I am, still alive._

'Only what needed to be done, my Prince. The Lord of the Light has plans for you yet.'

Prince. He was no prince, only a bastard who had risen too high. He looked at the other men in the room, the Onion Knight, he recollected. Edd. A tall, redheaded man whom he'd never seen before. 

'They killed me,' he said, running his hands along his throat. And then he stopped, for he felt only smooth skin. 

That couldn't be. He'd felt Wick Whittlestick swipe at his neck, tears in his eyes. He'd felt the metal graze his skin, felt the blood trickle down. 

'My scars,' he wondered. Looking down, he was naked, but it scarce bothered him. Red, and ugly, they were scattered all over his chest. His chest...

Fear rising in his chest, he looked at his hand, flexing his fingers. An action that had once felt stiff and unyielding now felt as smooth as it had before he'd burnt it. He reached up to his forehead and felt smooth skin, unfamiliar angles. 

'What is this?' He asked. 'What have you done - this is not my body - ?'

Everyone shifted, before the redheaded wildling - for he was dressed like one - scoffed. 'Did being dead take your wits away, Lord Commander?' The man's tone made his hackles rise. 'That's your own little body you're in, though I can see why you'd be disappointed. Never seen a man with a pecker that small, har!'

Annoyed despite himself at the words, he turned to the wildling. 'And who are you?' He asked, perhaps a touch ruder than he'd like to be. 

'Who am I?' The wildling roared, his offence plain on his face to see. 'You think this a jape? Tormund Giantsbane, forgotten?'

'No, I think something's wrong -' Davos began, waving his hands in the air, and only then did Jon notice that his left hand was intact, and that it was his right that was missing the fingers. 

The Red Witch shifted. While he had been lost in his thoughts, she had moved next to the fireplace, looking deeply into the hearth. 'It seems you are disoriented, my Lord. It is only to be expected, you were dead for three days...'

Three days. Three days he'd been dead, and now he was alive and nothing was right. He dug his hand into his direwolf, Ghost centering him. 

'Tormund Gianstbane has white hair,' he said, his eyes slowly panning the room. His sword lay on his desk, only a few arms away, he would fight his way out if he had to. 'You are an imposter and I demand the truth, right now.'

'You couldn't see the truth if it danced naked in front of you, you little shi -'

'Tormund, that's enough,' the Onion Knight interjected. 'I think there's something going on that we don't understand. Perhaps Lady Melisandre can explain what is happening.'

The lady in question stirred, for she was looking deeply into the flames. 'Curiouser, and curiouser.' She muttered. 'I see you in the flames, with your direwolf, screaming into a coming storm. But there is something that stops me from seeing clearly, something that distorts the image. Old magic, older than I thought possible -'

'He is clearly Jon Snow,' she announced, turning back to face the room. 'That much is clear. But sometimes, when a man wakes from his dreams, he has trouble knowing what is real and what is not. And Jon Snow has dreamt deeper than most, before the Lord brought him back.'

'He's addled is what he is,' protested the man who called himself Tormund. 'He doesn't even recognize an ally -'

'Name your sons,' Jon says, reaching into his memory for the boy he'd taken hostage. 'If you are truly the bear-fucker, you would know the name of your own children.'

'Sons?' Roared would-be Tormund. 'You mocking me, crow? You know I don't have any, only got two -'

'Then you are a liar, and an imposter,' he said. Despite the strange circumstances, he felt strangely calm. _It is the Winter in me. I was dead and it shall never leave me._ 'I was stabbed, but I took no blows to the head. Now you will explain this mummery to me, or I will take the secret after I break every last one of you.' _I am the Lord Commander. I will not be afraid_. 

'You couldn't hurt me if you tried, little Crow,' scoffed Tormund. Something in his face softened. 'You don't hurt your friends.'

'You are no friend of mine. And neither are you, ' he said, 'for I send Eddison Tollett to Long Barrow to take the command. And you may look like him but again, you missed the details. Your hair, mummer.'

'Jon, you're not making sense. Long Barrow has been abandoned for decades now -'

'I asked Ed to garrison it so that we had a chance when the dead came!' He said curtly, incensed at the familiarity this man spoke with. 'I'm the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch and I will have you all hung for the audacity to try and trick me.'

The false Knight spoke. 'That'll be difficult, my Lord, considering the Watch has betrayed you and locked us in here with you and no way out.'

So that, at least, was the same. 

'And how do I know that you are not another trick by those same traitors?' He demanded. 

Would-be Edd turned to Melisandre. 'He's gone crazy,' he said. 'You brought him back wrong.'

'No, he is the Lord's chosen. He is still the man I see in the flames. Put down your weapon, My Lord. We will do the same.' Her voice was low, musical, but it held an iron will. 'Let us try and settle a peace with our words, for enough blood has been shed and there should be none shed amongst allies'

The others in the room hesitated. 

'Let's not kid ourselves,' said would-be Edd. 'Even without the sword the direwolf alone could kill us before we got to the Commander. God knows how he got so big in three days, anyway.'

He's been this way for ages, Jon wanted to say, but held his tongue. Slowly, the others in the room unstrapped their weapons and let them fall to the floor. He walked behind his table and took his seat. 

'Prove to me that you are, indeed, who you say you are. You first, Onion Knight. Tell me everything of yourself, and I will judge the truth of it.'

Davos hesitated, and then he began to speak, weaving a tale that seemed familiar yet fantastic to Jon. 

He spoke of his beginnings as a smuggler, and how Stannis had both elevated and punished him. How he'd served the Lord faithfully. The sunlight turned orange and then vanished as he spoke, of how Stannis had arrived at Castle Black, of how he'd treated with Jon. How he had fought and died trying to unite the North, but it was his fleet that Jon had taken to bring the wildlings South of the wall. 

Tormund added tales here and there, of Hardhome, of how Jon had killed a Walker, and Edd finished it with how he had found Jon dead, had brought him here and how the Red Lady had brought him back. 

It was not untrue, he could tell, for it was a story similar to what he knew, but not the same. 

_The gods make fools of us all,_ he thought, unwilling to break the silence that descended in the room after they had finished speaking. _This is some strange jape, that I have come alive in a world that is mine but is not, at the same time._

_Guide me, if you can_ , he thought, praying to the gods that he followed, and his father had before him. _Tell me what I should do_. 

The back of his neck pricked. The window burst open, and a dark shape flew into the room, drawing startled cries from Davos and Tormund.

'Crow!' Screamed the Old Bear's raven, as it wheeled around the room and settled on Jon's shoulder. 'Crow!'

'Where the fuck did that bird come from?' Demanded not-Tormund. 'And why does it speak like that?'

'You have not seen it before?' Jon asked. He reached up to feel the dark feathers on its breast. Tormund shook his head. The others eyed it warily. 

'It is a foul beast, touched by the false Gods of your trees.'

'And you will not harm it, then,' demanded Jon. _Can it be? Is the old bird a sign from the old gods? Did it follow me here from whence I came?_

His mind made up, he spoke. 'I will believe you, for now,' he said, measuring his words. 'But first, I would have you swear your vows to me again, and know that I will not hesitate to gut you like a fish should you ever betray me.'

'Har, spoken like a green boy with more balls then cock!' Said Tormund. 'And why should we trust you, little Crow, when you have heard our tale and we know nought of yours? How do we know that you are Jon Snow and not a trick of the Others?'

'I am who I say I am, and you will make no demands of me,' said Jon, his voice firm. 'I am Jon Snow, the Bastard of Winterfell, the last son of Lord Eddard Stark, the nine-hundred and ninety-eighth Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. I was raised in Winterfell with the Starks, and I joined the Watch as a Black Crow. I befriended the Free Folk, and I fought the dead men. I was betrayed by those I called brothers, ' Unfamiliar though their names were. _Olly, not Satin. '_ Winter is coming.'

Tormund laughed. 'Ay, it's the Crow alright, or as close to him as can be. I won't kneel, not this day or my last, but you know you've got my axe.'

'And my sword,' said Edd. 'Not that it's a very good one.'

'And my counsel, m'Lord,' added Davos. 

'Then, let us plan,' said Jon. 'Tell me again of the traitors who tried to harm me.'

_Olly. Bowen Marsh. Alliser Thorne. Othell Yarwick._ Names he knew, names he didn't. He committed them to memory. 

'They are locked up and safely out of the way,' said Ser Davos. 'I fear, but, that their influence still seeps amongst the men.'

'Then perhaps that influence needs curbing,' he said. 'Edd, bring me my cloak.'

'Ay, though it seems that the chill does not harm you any more.' He was right, thought Jon. He had changed. He felt his blood sing through his veins, felt the thrum of his heart under his chest. The cold could not touch him, he was sure of it. 

Nevertheless, he dressed quickly, strapping Longclaw to his side, flexing his hand around the hilt out of old habit. 

They unbolted the door and hurried down the steps. Two guards stood next to the entrance of the Lord Commander's tower, and they yelped in shock and terror as he emerged. One of them was a wildling. 

'Lord Commander -'

'How -? '

The men fell into step behind him, peppering him with questions, but he was glad that none of them tried to attack him. 

Cries rang out as he strode across the courtyard, his company of woman and men behind him. 

'Lord Commander! Lord Snow!'

The stocks stood in the corner of the courtyard, the same place the wildlings had once been jailed. Crows sat within them now, ragged and filthy, huddled together for warmth. 

He stopped before them, knowing he must look a sight with the black bird on his shoulder and the wolf next to him. Good, for he wanted it that way. 

'Alliser Thorne,' he said, as the man in question looked up and then blanched like he had seen a ghost. 'It is good to see you where you belong.'

'How are you still alive? We saw you bleed out.' And then his face twisted in fear. 'A wight, it's a wight -' 

'I am no wight,' he said sharply, eager to kill that rumour before it could begin. 'I am no Walker, I am no other. The dead do not speak. And I am not as dead as you will soon be, traitor.' Bowen Marsh, and Olly, they flinched at his words. Othell only looked at him with unfocused eyes. The cold had taken his wits. 

'It cannot be possible,' tried Thorne again. 

'But it is. You stabbed me through the heart, gutted me, but you could not do your job, Ser. You failed.'

'Then perhaps I should do it a second time,' snarled Thorne. Ghost shifted, next to him. 

'From there? I would like to see you try.'

'M'Lord, how?' Questioned Finn, a ranger who had been at the watch since before he had arrived. His awe was writ plain on his face, and on the faces of many around him, their eyes wide and mouths open. 

'It is of no concern,' he said. 'Seize the traitors, and bring them outside.'

'No they won't,' bellowed Thorne. 'I am the Commander of the Night's Watch now, and they listen to me.'

Jon laughed. A cruel, mocking sound that made even those around him draw back. 'A fine pair of Lord Commanders we are, then. One a revenant and the other a prisoner.'

'I'm no prisoner! It's your wildlings who came upon us and forced us here. The Watch had declared me their Lord before they arrived!'

'Aye, and they suffered for it. I will brook no traitors. Are there any who would claim to be one still?'

No one moved or spoke. 

'You are the traitor!' Screamed thorn. 

'He is the right of it,' said Bowen Marsh, for he must've known it was his only chance. 'I voted for Jon Snow to make him Lord Commander, but he brought the wildlings south and ruined everything the Night's Watch stood for, and now he plans to take us South to fight for him against the Bolton's. The Night's Watch takes no part.'

'You are right, both of you,' said Jon Snow. 'But Ser Alliser, you are relieved of your command, and Marsh, your words are wind. I am, then, the thousandth Commander at the Wall, and you will both die by my hands. And so will the traitors. Any who want to join them should make themselves clear now, or suffer worse for it, later. Any who repent will be allowed to take the black again and swear to serve the watch. But not you four.'

'You are only a bastard and I will kill you before you take over the Watch again! Men, seize him.' Said Thorne, to the crows who still stood free. Jon assumed that they had opposed the Master at Arms' plot. 

No one moved. Some wildlings reached for their weapons. 'Seize him!' Ser Alliser cried. 'I am your Lord, I command it!' 

'It looked like the Lord Commander returned from the dead, Ser Thorne,' said the cook, Three-Finger Hobb, who had come out to see what the commotion was about. 'I'd sooner follow the man who could do that.'

'He's an abomination,' protested Thorne. 

'He is blessed by the Gods, for they have seen fit to grant him life again. He is the Prince of prophecy' said Melisandre, then, and a ripple of whispers went around the crowd. 

'Enough,' said Jon. 'Bring them out.'

Edd and Tormund strode forward, grabbing the old knight under the arms. They dragged him outside, even as he kicked and screamed, and then the others moved, seizing the men who'd killed him and making them kneel in the snow. 

It filled him with vindictive pleasure, knowing that this was his power, his command. That the wildlings and some of his men were loyal to him still, over those who had sought to snatch his power from him. 

Yet it could not be denied that the wildlings far outnumbered the Black Brothers now, and it was them that Jon ordered about. Yet they did his bidding without protest, looking at him with wide eyes. 

'Look at him,' yelled Thorne. 'Still he spits on our ways, still he disrespects the Watch! You are a traitor to the black, you bastard!'

'No, that is you, Ser,' he turned to the men. _I should have done this before, I should have remembered the lessons my father had taught me. That Maester Aemon and Mance and Tormund had._

'Look back to your vows! We are the shield that guards the realms of Men, not the realms south of the Wall!' He had said these words to Bowen Marsh, before, but he should have said it to all.

'Wildling, Night's Watch, it does not matter. The only enemy is out there, on the other side of the wall, and we must face it as one. The Other's don't care about the colour of your cloak or the place of your birth. They only kill, destroy and then raise the living as their servants.'

'And you, my Lord, will help me in my fight.'

He turned to those who knelt in the snow before him. One was a boy, barely of ten-and-three. Olly, the boy who was not Satin. 'Hang them all,' he said, before pausing for a beat. 'And throw their corpses in the ice cells.'

'My Lord, they will return -'

'Aye, they will. And when they do, I mean to use their rotting shells to gather the men to our cause.' He looked at the horror on the faces of the accused, on many of the Men around the courtyard. But no one protested. 

Bowen Marsh began to weep. 'Mercy, my Lord. Mercy, I beg of you.'

Jon ignored him. 'See that it is done.'

They hung within the hour. 

The men mumbled as he passed, some looking away from his eyes. Jon sat in his chair and watched the legs of the traitors fall slack through the window. 

Lady Melisandre came to him then. 

'The men do not known what to think,' she said. 'Even in times of dead men coming to life, they call it a miracle. They are praying to their gods for wisdom, but a few pray to you as well, I think.'

'A good thing, I would imagine,' he said. 'Men are less likely to try and stab a God, are they not?'

'Or perhaps they will try harder, for who would not like to be known as a Godslayer?'

'They will all fail, my Lady. I plan to stay alive and well for a long time to come, now.'

Melisandre smiled. 

'You are not the Jon Snow of this world, are you, my Lord?' She asked, the ruby on her neck glittrering. Her eyes were not red like he remembered, but a deep brown. 'Yes, you will remain silent, but I know the truth of it. But you cannot survive in this world without knowing of it, Jon Snow.'

'And what would you suggest I do, my Lady?'

He asked, unwilling to give her the satisfaction but knowing that she was right. 

'I called on the Lord of the Light to bring you back, and instead he brought you to me,' she answered. 'The Lord works in mysterious ways, and yet all of what he does is with a purpose.'

'Speak plainly.'

'Look into the fire with me, Lord Commander. See what was, what is, and what may come to pass. Look into the fire.'

'Fire! Fire!' Crowed the raven from his perch by the window. 

'It is a strange creature,' the red witch said. 'I have lived many years and learnt the strangest of magics, but wargs and skinchangers have thought to have gone extinct long ago.'

'I am no warg,' said Jon, but the words felt hollow even to his own ears. His time within the free folk, and his dreams of Ghost had long revealed the truth of it. He had spent three days in his wolf, after all. 

'Maybe you are not, maybe you are. The gods only know. But come hither, my Lord, and look to the flames.'

She gestured with her hands, and she felt a chill go down his spine as the shadows in the room seemed to grow and crawl until they hung over him like a forest canopy. The only light was the reddish glow of the flame. 

He watched the fires spit and crackle, like a man under a spell. Melisandre began chanting, softly, but he could not hear. 

His eyes grew heavier. In the heart of the fire he saw a shape he might recognize, the home had grown up in, as a child. Winterfell. 

He watched, as if like a stranger, himself - or this not-himself. He watched him grow, watched him play with Robb and Arya, watched him be scorened by Catelyn. He watched Jon Snow live, and grow -

And he watched him with contempt. He did not know where the visions ended and his dreams began, for he dreamt of his family, both his and this imposters. He dreamt of Sansa, with her hair kissed by fire, and ached at the thought of her trapped in her home with the Boltons. The ugly part of him, a tiny hidden bit, was relieved that it was not his other sister who was trapped. 

But the fact remained. He had to do better, and he would. 

Winter was here, and it was him who wielded it. 

**Author's Note:**

> Phew. I struggle with beginnings. Let's see where this goes, shall we. 
> 
> I wanted to write a Dany time travel fic. I wanted to fix the mess that was Jon Snow in the show. Why not do both? 
> 
> There's an old writing dictum: if the hero is too OP, the villain has to be upgraded too. I think the opposite is true as well, don't you? And we all know the white walkers are OP to the max. 
> 
> Also Ghost is a BIG BOI, like he is in the books. He's still, however, the GOODEST boy.


End file.
